I JUST EXIST IN THIS DARKEN WORLD I LIVE IN
this poem is a shipwreck, your eyes the radar.
my body is a shipwreck, your arms the coast.
the truth is a shipwreck, your heart the lighthouse.
your feelings a shipwreck, my love
the shore
my god the shore —
how far away it is
a bridge / a highway / a reason to stay / a love that blooms / that does not stay suspended
in numbers /
my god the shore —
how close it is
a breath taken / a swim / a movement / the body begging to come home / but the body is
an anchor /
the body says more than the tongue /
the body says i have sailed and will continue to / away from you / the body is the sun —
you are the earth
the body is not meant to crash and burn, the body is meant to keep cycling. keep burning. keep
going. you are meant to keep moving. we are years away from each other’s collision. the stars
have died out, but they wait until they feel like i’m ready to accept them.
the big bang feels more like tombstone than beginning.
and i don’t know if forgetting will hurt me more than remembering.
Pauline Monter is a Filipino poet and performer, currently residing in New Jersey. Her work, What We Fear appears in the anthology Colorism: Essays and Poems. She is a recent graduate of Rutgers University, with a BA in Psychology.